To support IAA members and actuaries worldwide with the application and implementation of IFRS 17, the IAA’s Actuarial Standards Committee is working on a model International Standard of Actuarial Practice, ISAP 4, which will guide actuaries in the use of IFRS 17. The ISAP 4 exposure draft is currently scheduled to be released for comments by January 2018 and the final ISAP 4 approved in 2019. This timetable allows sufficient time for wide consultation with IAA members and stakeholders.

The IAA’s support for IFRS 17 is also being demonstrated by the work of its Insurance Accounting Committee’s Education and Practice Subcommittee. The subcommittee’s mission is to develop and maintain information of an educational and practice nature that will be useful to actuaries globally in the area of insurance accounting and auditing. This includes International Actuarial Notes (IANs) and other educational material such as monographs and books relating to actuarial practice in the context of financial reporting of insurers. In support of that mission the subcommittee is developing several IANs, which will include an introduction to IFRS 17, approaches to classifications of contracts required by IFRS 17, current estimates and discount rates, risk adjustment, the contractual service margin, and many other topics. Drafts of many of these IANs are expected to be available by the end of 2017.

Another of the subcommittee’s projects is the production of a monograph on risk adjustments as required by IFRS 17. An exposure draft was released in November 2016, and experts’ responses have been compiled. Following discussion at the IAA committee meetings in Budapest in April, the plan is for the document to be finalized by the end of August 2017.

This activity supports the IAA’s mission to promote the role, reputation and recognition of the actuarial profession in the international domain. Further, it contributes towards achieving the IAA’s strategic objective to provide relevant supranational organizations with actuarial input by developing model standards of actuarial practice, in addition to facilitating the coordination, use and expansion of the scientific knowledge and skills of the actuarial profession, to help enhance the scope, availability, and quality of actuarial services offered by individual members of its member associations.

The International Actuarial Association is the worldwide association of professional actuarial associations, with a number of special-interest sections for individual actuaries. Founded in 1895, the IAA exists to encourage the development of a global actuarial profession that is acknowledged as technically competent and professionally reliable, ensuring that the public interest is served. The IAA has 70 Full Member Associations, representing 98 percent of qualified actuaries worldwide, and 28 Associate Member Associations.